Category Archives: Insomnia

Insomnia (or sleeplessness) is an individual’s reported sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions: “Do you experience difficulty sleeping?” or “Do you have difficulty falling or staying asleep?”

Thus, insomnia is most often thought of as both a sign and a symptom that can accompany several sleep, medical, and psychiatric disorders, characterized by persistent difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep or sleep of poor quality. Insomnia is typically followed by functional impairment while awake. One definition of insomnia is “difficulties initiating and/or maintaining sleep, or nonrestorative sleep, associated with impairments of daytime functioning or marked distress for more than 1 month.” Insomnia can occur at any age, but it is particularly common in the elderly.. Insomnia can be short term (up to three weeks) or long term (above 3-4 weeks) which can unfortunately lead to memory problems, depression, irritability and an increased risk of heart disease and automobile related accidents .

Insomnia can be grouped into primary and secondary, or comorbid, insomnia. Primary insomnia is a sleep disorder not attributable to a medical, psychiatric, or environmental cause. It is described as a complaint of prolonged sleep onset latency, disturbance of sleep maintenance, or the experience of non-refreshing sleep. A complete diagnosis will differentiate between:

insomnia as secondary to another condition,
primary insomnia co-morbid with one or more conditions, or
free-standing primary insomnia.